ADDIS ABABA – A senior member of the Eritrean ruling party of President Isaias Afwerki arrived in Addis Ababa recently in the midst of a fiery rhetoric of war from Asmara’s strongman Isaias Afwerki.
Eritrean ruling party official Getahun Teame flew to Addis from the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and was picked up at Bole International Airport by Bereket Simon, spokesperson and second-in-command of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party.
Eritrea has imposed more restrictions on the movement of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, raising fears that indeed the Eritrean leader may live up to his long-overdue promise, a new round of war aimed at re-taking Ethiopian territories ruled in favor of Eritrea by a Hague-based Boundary Commission in April 2003.
But the unofficial visit of the Eritrean official to Addis Ababa has further compounded an already complex political equation, and according to one political observer, Getahun’s secret meeting with Bereket, who is also an Eritrean, was a well-timed plot between Addis and Asmara to reverse the tide of a popular democratic opposition threatening to end Meles Zenawi’s 14-year-old rule in Ethiopia.
The popular Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP), which turned Addis Ababa into a powerful opposition stronghold by sweeping all 23 parliamentary seats in the May election, and enjoys a strong backing throughout the nation, has planned a series of national strikes after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to force Meles to resolve the crisis peacefully.
“This war, like the previous 1998-2000 war which Eritrea launched in a bid to get out of its economic crisis, has nothing to do with re-taking Ethiopian territories by force. This war is aimed at rescuing a prime minister who has fought Ethiopians in favor of Eritrea. The remarkable performance of the two Ethiopian opposition parties (the other one is United Ethiopian Democratic Forces) has been a real threat to Asmara which would do whatever it takes to block, if not destroy, the opposition groups from coming to power. Getahun’s visit is to co-ordinate how the war should be carried out and the democratic momentum in Ethiopia foiled by creating conditions conducive to Meles to declare a state of emergency with no end in sight until the people's quest for change dies out over time,” the observer said.
Getahun, whose older brother, Bandeira Teame, is also an executive of Asmara Aiport, was confirmed as a close friend of Bereket Simon, the man who rescued Meles Zenawi in 2001 when almost all Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) officials charged the premier with treasonous crimes of assisting Eritrea in its war against Ethiopia.
Bereket rallied his Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), also a coalition partner of the ruling EPRDF, behind Meles, a life-saving service which boosted the vulnerable position of Meles to strip the TPLF officials of their parliamentary immunities. Most of his critics were instantly disfranchised, a few jailed, and the then Security Minister, Kinfe GebreMedhin, who showed more tendencies toward the opponents of Mr Meles, was murdered on the premises of the Ground Forces Sports Club one morning in 2001.
Four years later, Meles finds himself in an extremely vulnerable position, even postponing the opening of the nation's premier Addis Ababa University, for fear of renewing nationwide student protests on campuses now closed for three solid months. He has launched a terror campaign against opposition supportes and members throughout the country, hoping to destroy the grassroots support base of the parties which, by the election findings of the European Union and the Carter Center, have won more votes than the incumbent party. Unlike in previous years, Meles not only faces a nation which reviles him as an Eritrean agent but also a simmering anti-Meles movement within ANDM, and where TPLF men who replaced the TPLF dissidents are seen as a bunch of Eritrea-affiliated hirelings.
“The coming war from Eritrea is,” said the observer, “a smokescreen to battle the democratic moment being spearheaded by CUD and UEDF, and rescue old Eritrean buddy Meles Zenawi.”
(Meanwhile, others dismiss Eritrea's war threat as a publicity stunt to drum up support from the Eritrean diaspora, whose remittances had reached an annual $300 million income for the government at the height of war with Ethiopia. The windfall drastically diminished in subsequent years following Eritrea's ignominous defeat in the hands of the Ethiopian Defense Forces whose victory was aborted by Meles. Renewing the war environment is, the observes say, a strategy to stir nationalist sentiments of those in the Eritrean diaspora, and restore the flow of the much-needed hard currency to Asmara.)
But certainly, they would continue to use Badme to spice up the Meles-Isaias political stew. (EthioMedia